Do Not Expect To See God Directly; You Will see What You Are Not First

I was associated with the 60's hippies. I knew the original hippies were already gone when I arrived in San Francisco in 1967, and that the crowd's in Haight Ashbury were just looking for them. I was of a like mind, though, reading the New Age periodicals, practicing Transcendental Meditation, investigating Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, reading The Teachers of Gurdjieff, Alan Watts, Cayce, Montgomery, Dixon, everything about opening chakras, Tantra, dreams, etc.  Wasn't much of a Christian anymore. In early 1975 I was 25 and doing whatever I wanted. I directed my own life. It wasn't pretty, but I was independent.

Then in an occult meditation at the metaphysics center, Jesus approached me. I was supposed to allow him to enter my mind and teach me personally what he had taught his disciples before the unspiritual gained control of the church and lost it. As he approached, I was suddenly able to see past the façade of light emanating from him. He was all darkness within. I didn't let him in.

I was also suddenly full of understanding that this had been a real deceiving spirit who had been leading me up this moment. It needed me to lower my judgment to allow it to enter me, because I was of a higher level of judgment than it was. The one who had opened my mind's eye did not need my permission, because he was of a higher level.

I was stuck with the reality that this unseen realm stuff was -- is -- real. I went to my mother's best friend whom I had known all my life, and she had just had a similar miracle happen to her. We got saved at the House of Praise in Kaimuki. But when I got saved nothing happened to me. Yes, I confessed Christ and accepted him as my Lord and Savior, and I felt good about it, but I didn't break out in tongues like the guy next to me (this was a hyper-Pentecostal gathering).

I was led to ask for the gift of tongues later, at Grace Bible Church in Honolulu, and found myself utterly rejected by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. I wept. Then through a vision I saw why I was rejected: I had retained my own self-lordship. I was still controlling and directing my life. "My" life. I suddenly understood the offence: it is HIS life! Mine only in His grace to do HIS will. Boy, had I screwed up. My self-lordship was rebellion against Him. I cast control of my life out of myself. I thought I'd fall flat on my face like a blob of jelly, but I was caught! My heart melted within me, and I finally found sincere surrender and submission to God's will. Whatever He told me to do, that I would do. I heard the faintest, softest of voices say, "Remember this, and it is all right." I was accepted, and the Life of the Holy Ghost rose in my bowels and praise flowed out of my mouth in another language.

Like it or not, the unseen realm is as real, even more real than our visible realm. It, like earth, is an image of God. We are a playground of naughties; it is a higher level of school. Get ready for class, because recess is about over.